Sex work is one of the most maligned forms of labor, and often subject to misrepresentation and speculation. We asked two leading sex worker activists to break down some of the most common misconceptions.

The Butte County Sheriff on Monday reported 13 more fatalities had been discovered on Monday from the Camp wildfire, which all but wiped out the town of Paradise, located about 90 miles north of Sacramento. This brings the death toll to 42, which eclipses the Griffith Park Fire of 1933 as the deadliest wildfire recorded in state history. It already holds the title of the most destructive wildfire on record.

Details: With more than 200 people still unaccounted for, the death toll may increase further. The wildfire has consumed over 6,400 homes. The latest death toll comes after President Trump said on Twitter that he had approved a request to declare the fires in California a major disaster. People affected would be eligible for federal government aid.

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The big picture: The Camp Fire is part of a spate of destructive wildfires that have ravaged California communities in the north and south, with evacuations still in effect in parts of Ventura and Los Angeles counties due to the damaging Woolsey Fire, which has claimed 2 lives and destroyed more than 300 structures.

On Friday, Victoria’s secret was out: the international retailer doesn’t support trans or plus-size people. VS’s chief marketing officer and executive vice president of public relations Ed Razek admitted to Vogue that they intentionally don’t have trans or plus-size models on the runway at their event.

“Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should,” Razek remarked during the interview. “Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy.” It may be the fantasy of far-right conservatives that trans people don’t exist, especially after the Trump memo. However, in a country where nearly 3% of teens are trans or gender nonconforming and the average woman is size 16/18, the fantasy is just that — unreal, unnecessary, and exclusionary.

Following a long silence on the clearly anti-trans and anti–plus-size statements, Razek clumsily walked back on the comments: “To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model for the show. We’ve had transgender models come to castings… and like many others, they didn’t make it…But it was never about gender. I admire and respect their journey to embrace who they really are.”

In response to their continued refusal to cast trans or plus-size models, here are eight lingerie and undergarment brands you can support that actually embrace our communities.

The beloved brand churns out swimsuits, activewear, and lingerie that caters to and celebrates body types outside of traditional beauty standards. Their groundbreaking Pool Rules campaign embraced curve models, models with disabilities, models with scars, and transgender models, to name a few. The Chromat runway show at NYFW regularly centers models of color, plus-size models, and queer and trans models. The collection runs from size XS to 4X.

The brand launched in 2013 to quickly gain international prominence among queer and trans people. The gender-neutral line runs from XS to 4X and their pieces come in a variety of colors and nude tones.

Rebirth specializes in trans, genderqueer, and disability-specific needs in lingerie. They aim to challenge mainstream beauty standards through radical visibility. Sky Cubacub founded the brand after not being able to buy a binder — and get this: sizes can be customized.

The Brooklyn-based LGBTQIA-centered lingerie boutique features plenty of plus-size and trans models on its website. Portions of the proceeds are donated to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Planned Parenthood, and Fenway Health, among others.

The custom-fit slow fashion retailer offers sizing from XXS to 5XL, specializing in gender-diverse undergarments. Their lingerie is made from eco-friendly bamboo and swimwear from family-owned Canadian dead stock.

“Good children’s fiction cultivates empathy, imagination, social conscience, and historical awareness. Some of the best children’s novels written during the early twentieth century also raise class consciousness—Natalie Savage Carson’s The Family Under the Bridge, for example; socialist E. Nesbit’s Railway Children, Eleanor Estes’s The Hundred Dresses, and the original Mary Poppins books, which are wonderfully critical of capitalism and give magical superpowers to a nanny and her working-class friends.

While the politics of these older books hold up well, it’s hard to miss how very white the characters are. Fortunately, a new wave of multicultural, politically attuned children’s fiction is now hitting the shelves. Thanks in part to a movement called “We Need Diverse Books,” many new novels for middle graders and young adults include more people of color, gay and lesbian characters, ethnic and religious minorities, and the differently abled.”

Like this:

FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

CLICK IMAGE FOR LINK

Chanel Lopez, transgender community liaison, spoke at protest rally for transgender immigrants in Queens on Tuesday. (Andrew Savulich / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Gay and transgender rights activists are demanding justice after two alleged hate crimes in Queens — the stabbing of a transgender woman and the beating of a gay man — after the borough’s Pride Parade.

The beating happened at about 9:55 p.m. as victim Brandon Soriano, 25, was walking through Jackson Heights after the June 3 parade, police sources said.

“You’re a f—–g f—-t!” two men yelled, just before descending on Soriano and pummeling him on 83rd St. at 37th Ave., sources said. The men then ran north. Cops have made no arrests.

Soriano’s mom, Mary Kilafofski, 48, said one of the men knocked him unconscious, and the other started kicking.

speech on the floor of the Missouri Senate regarding the importance of African American men standing up for their culture and their beliefs.

Rose McGowan, who first went public with accusations against Harvey Weinstein and whose campaigning became the focus of the #MeToo movement, tweeted Friday she is canceling all future engagements following a contentious confrontation with a transgender activist in New York City.

White House withdraws nomination of wildly unqualified climate science denier to top environmental post; Drought returns with a vengeance to California and Southern U.S.; Exxon Mobil pulled in an extra $8 billion in profits thanks to the Republicans’ tax cut; PLUS: California’s governor hits the accelerator on statewide electric vehicle charging network… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Durban – Police are failing to investigate regular
incidents of rape of young sex workers operating on Durban’s beachfront. So says Vashti Downs, a 41-year-old Christian missionary and founder of Anchor’s Hope, an organisation that cares for sex workers.

TOMS RIVER — An admitted drug dealer who was caught with about 4,150 doses of heroin worth $25,000 was sentenced to just six months of rehab and five years of probation.
Gary Fox, 30, of Toms River, who has a criminal record that includes previous drug convictions, avoided prison by being accepted by Drug Court and pleading guilty to two counts of third-degree possession with intent to distribute and a count of possession.
http://nj1015.com/nj-dealer-caught-with-83-bricks-of-heroin-gets-6-months-of-rehab-no-prison/

It’s Trans Awareness Week! In 2018, the representation of transgender actors and actresses on film and television has increased significantly. The '80s-set FX series Pose cast the highest number of transgender actresses as series regulars, while a successful campaign against cisgender actress Scarlett Johansson playing the role of transgender man Dante "Tex" Bill in the film Rub & Tug ensured that the […]

Hey Gang. While recording this White On White Crime episode, the wire issue with William's microphone got in the way so we have to use the secondary recording from the facebook live. We'll be replacing that microphone cord from The Wine Cellar Media this weekend and if that doesn't do it, we're finally going to […]

Hey gang. The title of this one came from a riff from one of the two stories getting hit up today. There is a George Zimmerman update and a new story about an attempted Racist murder that only got the murderer 4 years.

Hey gang. Let the folks down at Teen Vogue know that they need full time podcasters on ther staff. This is the Morning Wine Cellar for 11/13/18. William is here to do a solo riff real quick and we'll be back later for the evening Wine Cellar. https://www.patreon.com/WineCellarMediaFund http://PayPal.Me/PhoenixAndWilliam Police accused of threatening sex workers […]

Hey gang. We jump straight into an.... "Analysis" article by John Blake. We had an episode in 2017 where we dug into the question "What Is Woke" and now we're back on this term again. From there we tackle some headlines and stories briefly. Some fun audio is at the beginning and end for podcast […]

Morning Wine Cellar. Hey Gang. We open up with a brief riff on folks voting in their interests. From there, we jump over to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez being Melinnial AF. And we close out in Cameroon. Hey gang. We need to get our YouTube up to 4,000 subscribers before we can apply to monetize. Help […]

At least 79 students and three others, including the principal, were seized early on Monday morning in Bamenda, the capital of the North-West region, a government official has told the BBC. A massive search operation involving the Cameroonian army is now under way. Cameroon's North-West and South-West regions have been hit by a s ecessionist […]

Hey gang. Dropping in with a quick post election Morning Wine Cellar and I gotta get to the factory a little early today. Florida is going to let felons vote. JB Pritzker snagged up Illinois and Facebook let advertisers aim for that White Genocide click. Hey gang. We need to get our YouTube up to […]

Hey gang. This is one of those episodes that can't get a cohesive title. This is all over the place Wine Cellar News and Comment. We got our vote on over here in Illinois right before coming home and going live. But we got to do without being met with a racist and his German […]

Hey gang. Let's trigger warning it up. This is a quick Morning Wine Cellar. We jump right in with the story of a Trans Woman facing Sadistic abuse by the legal system. LINK - Dallas jailers ordered transgender woman to show her genitals, lawsuit says From we dive right into news updates out of Seattle […]

Hey gang. On this one Phoenix gives up the low down on recent Lena Dunham And Rebel Wilson news. We're not ready to play the audio from the Scott Beierle video that was captured and re uploaded. But there is some reading from the incel thread where the video was posted. There's an update on […]

Hey gang. This is a quick Morning Wine Cellar for 11/5/18. We rip through a SESTA FOSTA update in San Francisco and William briefly tangents from reading the name Kamala Harris. Sex workers already didn't have rights. SESTA FOSTA removed their ways of working around not having rights and increased the looming dangers they faced. […]

Hey gang. Of course we're gonna dig into the intraracial misogynist story. Though the original show prep was about Boyce Watkins and his guest speaker Cluade Anderson. You're going to hear wicked ideas about white women hunting black men and the glass ceiling being white women having equality with black men. Yea. Conservatives are […]

If you haven’t been following the strain of Black conservatives we’ve been following from The Wine Cellar, you may have missed the new narrative. These Black conservatives ARE NOT Republicans. For the most part, they’re non partisan and many of this particular crowd actually think legislation, bills, amendments, school board members, city ordinances etc: don’t […]

Hey gang. In this one, we jump right in with the title story. We move over to a disturbing story that ends with a white man being arrested safe and alive. In a better world, we'd handle that different. We take brief look at Chinese activity in Africa. Then do some extra time on Coach […]

Hey gang. In this one, we hop in with some #BeckyLivesmatter news. A bit of Nazi and KKK for sale... For X-Mas? Then we take a look at this "Twitter War" between Candace and Tomi and why I find it interesting. We close out with a glance down in Australia. WE NEED 4,000 SUBSCRIBERS ON […]

Hey gang Maddie Stump comes through on this one for a much less entry level episode on Trans Rights. We know each other from the Facebook and have never interacted verbally before. We used Skype to record so there are the moments of our voices bumping into each other. Overall, Maddie lit this episode up […]